Thank you for a thoughtful, balanced piece. 3 things need to change, nevertheless. The first is the US reliance on the military-industrial complex for its economic survival. The second is the view of the US Exceptionalism, which comes awfully close to racism/xenophobia and the last, allied to the previous point, is others such as China should be considered as equals, not enemies. America has strayed too often into countries and battles not theirs to fight. Unless this changes, belligerence will exist in all quarters.

As to the Pacific nations, although the church has pervaded almost all countries, the inhabitants are still mindful of colonialism and white supremacy, and thus are wary of advances. The interlinking of tied grants/loans and other measures imposed by the West are often considered far more onerous than those proposed by China's largesse. This leads to a skewing away from Western interests to the China sphere. China's BRI has been a success with small nations, as well as those riven by internal pressures, especially economic.

Re-casting and balancing the world to ensure peace will not be easy as you say. Mindsets need to be changed and ingrained prejudices set aside. I have no short-term answer to this, especially given the complexity internally and externally of the present Palestinian/Israeli conflict and the obscene devastation caused to the people there.

Failure is not an option, as a conflagration to which you allude will be the end of us all, except perhaps some ants and cockroaches of the insect kind.

Again, thank you for your balance and analysis.